Robert Hugh Benson and the Catholic Literary Revival in Edwardian England

Robert Hugh Benson was a popular religious author in Edwardian England; however, he has been all but forgotten by posterity. This study re-examines Benson's contribution to the Catholic Literary Revival, a movement rooted in Romanticism. Benson utilized a "ministerial approach" to spread his message of renewal. Whereas other Revivalists wrote official histories, Benson wrote historical novels to advance the claim that the sixteenth century was responsible for British social disintegration. By presenting history as art, Benson presented his Christian worldview in a palatable form. Benson also had a complex relationship with 1890's Aestheticism. Though he wrote a novel denouncing its tenets, Benson seemed attracted by it. While many of his own views on art contradicted Aestheticism, he recognized the aesthetes' quest for beauty as valuable when consecrated to God. Finally, Benson authored a work of apocalyptic fiction which, though it prefigures many later twentieth-century works, also differs from them in some significant ways, especially in its purpose. Benson was a creative and original artist who deserves fresh attention by contemporary scholars.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

2002

Author dc:creator

• Stutz, Chad Philip

Contributors dc:contributor

• Richard Harp

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/1401

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2400